24 June 2009

Is it me, or are the cries for Bloomberg's ouster increasing by the week? Last fall, I often felt like a voice in the "But I like Bloomberg, he's all right" wilderness. Now, it seems astute observers from all corners are recognizing Mike's power grab for the rank piece of top-drawer corruption it is. (And the phrase "illegal third term" is being used more and more). This piece, written by The Pollitikat, was published on the estimable political blog Daily Kos yesterday. Worth a read.

Iran is Not the Only Election Being Stolen--Michael Bloomberg?

"New York, New York big city of dreams, but everything in New York ain't always what it seems, you might get fooled if you come from out of town," those lyrics are from a classic hip hop song next line to that classic hip hop song is "but I’m down by law and I know my way around," the reality is you might and will get fooled even if you are from town. If you dream of making it big in politics then New York is the city for you. New York City has a reputation of being progressive and that may be true when it comes to our vices but we are one of the most backwards. One of original thirteen colonies, we didn’t have an African American governor until the Spitzer sex scandal, and New York city the most culturally diverse cities has only had one minority leading the city, Dinkins who was kicked out after one term because of antics from people like Rudolph Giuliani.

We are often fooled by those seeking to use the state or city to promote their political careers; the most recent is Hillary Clinton who used New York as her base to establish a political career that would potentially lead to the presidency. It didn’t work out for Hillary but New Yorkers didn’t seem to have a problem with her using the state and overwhelmingly voted for her during the primary.

Now we have the situation of Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg an extremely successful Wall Street businessman was a registered democrat who many New Yorkers had never heard of before he decided to run for mayor in 2001. Bloomberg had virtually no name recognition outside the Business community and it was clear that he would not win democratic primary or the support of democratic political leadership so he jumped parties and captured the republican nomination. He spent over $75 million on the mayoral campaign and narrowly defeated the democratic candidate Mark Green. Bloomberg is now serving in his second and what should have been his final term except for one thing.

Michael Bloomberg is an opportunist; when it was clear that being a republican was no longer popular he again made the switch to "independent". Some speculated the change was made to line up for a possible run for the white house, but Bloomberg had something else in mind. He wanted to circumvent the wishes of new Yorker and run for a third term as mayor, even though new Yorkers twice voted to have the mayor serve only two terms.

Bloomberg has decided that he is the only one that could save New York City. The mayor claims the city has many problems and he wants to be around to help fix them. My question is where have you been for the past eight years Mr. Mayor? Wasn't he the one in office when the problems were getting out of control. The mayor has had eight years to tackle the problems that plague New York City, yet he has had minor impact. As a matter of fact the Mayor worked down the street from Wall Street and claimed not to know what was going on there. The mayor is one who also favored deregulation of the banks. While Wall Street stole the people money, the mayor was just chillin in city hall giving the cities money away.

While many New Yorkers seem to be fascinated with Bloomberg he remains in my eyes a mediocre Mayor, garnering much of his support from conducting what I call media stunts. The mayor has been very good at marketing himself and creating a smoke screen to distract us from his many failures since he became leader. The city has not gotten better, I would say things have gotten worse. Let us start with the MTA strike, the handling of the black out in queens, taking over of the board of education and the continued failure of the city's public school systems. Poor maintenance and deterioration of public housing, lack of low income or affordable housing, and the hole that’s still in lower Manhattan. Just to name a few. New York is one of the states affected by predatory sub-prime lending there are many houses in foreclosure and cars being repossessed. While Manhattan is kept nice and clean for the tourists the outer boroughs are in disarray. Drugs and guns continue to be a problem here.

After the strike fight with the union I did not expect what would come next. Bloomberg negotiated to give the New York Yankees over 600 million to build a new Yankee stadium. Well after we gave the Yankees our tax dollars they built a beautiful stadium that average new Yorkers cannot afford to attend, baseball which is usually a family affair, well the average New York family cannot afford it. If a family of four wants to see the game it will cost about $400 without tax. The Yankees are one of the most, if not the successful franchises partly because they are in New York. Did Bloomberg think the Yankees were going to leave the city if they didn’t get the money?

Campaign finance reform is something that we have been spending a great deal of time talking about for the past couple of years. Many feel that because Obama spent a record breaking amount of money in the last campaign that it should be ok for people to just go ahead and break the bank open if they have it. But realize that Obama raised that money from his supporters. People who wanted to see Obama win the office of presidency. Why does Bloomberg need to spend so much of his own money for his re-election? If he was doing such a great job as mayor wouldn’t there be an overwhelming show of support for his re-election. Wouldn’t he have been able to raise the money he needed from his supporters.

Wouldn’t he have presented to the people the option of allowing him to run again for a third term in the form of referendum vote; asking the people whether or not they supported him again for a third term. What the heck is Bloomberg afraid of and why doesn’t he respect the people of new York, why doesn’t he respect the fact that twice New Yorkers voted for term limits, yet Bloomberg felt that he had the right to overturn the will of the people and put himself on the ballot again for a third term. What is Bloomberg afraid of, he has no respect for the voters of New York and he bribed the members of the City Council to ok a third term for him by promising a third term for those who would have been also been termed out this year, he is once again trying to buy to office of the mayor. They way that the mayor is trying secure his third term I think is enough to vote him out, and any council member who supported the mayors efforts should also be removed from office.

It may sound good to just let Bloomberg go ahead and have his third term and I wondered who was going to step in as mayor because Bloomberg seems to be intimidating most of the cities leaders, and some treating him as a god, even though over seventy –nine schools have been closed under Bloomberg, the city is virtually bankrupt, public housing is falling apart, and wall street went bust under his nose. This city is in such bad shape that I considered keeping Bloomberg because there was no one else out there that seemed to be able to challenge him.

Bloomberg has a multi-million dollar budget and apparently willing to spend it all to ensure that he secures an illegal third term as mayor of the this great yet distressed city. To date Bloomberg has spent over nineteen million dollars on his re-election campaign. It is clear that he is once again trying to buy the mayors office. Although he feels it's his money and he should be able to do what he pleases with it I disagree. Millionaires should not be able to pour unlimited sums of their own money into a campaign and the law allowing that needs to be changed to limit the amount of personal funds a candidate can use to fund a political campaign.

William Thompson is the only candidate that is willing to take on Bloomberg, I am not sure that Thompson has the right message and is making the right points, I am willing to take anyone over Bloomberg, no politician should be a powerful as Bloomberg has become. So while we are condemning actions abroad in countries that have no bearing on our day to day lives, let’s remember those in this country who violate our laws, seizing power and refusing to let go. It seems we are always demanding that democracy be recognized abroad but when it is compromised here we are willing to acquiesce. People from out of town always have this perception of New Yorkers as progressive and not taking any crap, but most New Yorkers are from out of town. When it comes to our politics we are very malleable and easily fooled. We have to get Bloomberg out now, if we do not block Bloomberg at his attempt to steal a third term who knows when we will get rid of him.

2 comments:

Ed
said...

I've been agreeing with your Bloomberg pieces, and not commented because there hasn't been really any need to.

The thing with Bloomberg buying the election is that he can actually buy the election. I wouldn't surprised to see Thompson drop out and Avella ignored by the media at this stage, letting Bloomberg run unopposed. I wouldn't be surprised to see him run in the Democratic primary.

Remember his policies suit real estate interests, which in turn control the newspapers and fund many of the party machines. Its actually pretty amazing no one has thought of this formula before.

I also wouldn't be surprised to find out later that some of that money wound up as walking around money. It couldn't all be spent on ads.

The original, running Jeremiad on the vestiges of Old New York as they are steamrolled under or threatened by the currently ruthless real estate market and the City Fathers' disregard for Gotham's historical and cultural fabric. Est. January 2006.Contact Me

About Me

I have lived in New York City since 1988 and earn my bread as a writer. I began this blog in January 2006. Beyond that, don't be so nosy.
"I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism."
—Roberto Rossellini